Manny Ruiz, 53, spent 18 years as a pro rodeo clown, ducking bucking broncos and cracking dumb jokes for rowdy arena crowds before a cracked rib and his ex-wife walking out pushed him to settle down in east Texas, co-owning a small feed store just outside Palestine. His biggest flaw, as his best friend never tires of pointing out, is that he’s convinced he’s too loud, too scuffed, too marked up with old rodeo scars to be anyone’s first pick anymore. He hasn’t so much as asked a woman out for coffee in eight years, even when the regulars at the feed store slip him phone numbers written on feed receipts.
The annual county fire department chili cookoff is the biggest social event of the fall, and Manny’s been manning his brisket chili booth since 8 a.m., slinging bowls and teasing passersby while cedar smoke curls through the cool October air. He’s mid-joke about a bull that once chased him up an arena fence when he spots her: Clara Bennett, the new town librarian who moved to town six months prior, the one he’s accidentally driven past the library three times in the past two weeks just to catch a glimpse of her through the front window. She’s not wearing the frumpy cable knit cardigans he always sees her in behind the checkout desk, instead she’s in a soft dark denim dress that hits just above her knees, her honey-blonde hair loose instead of twisted into the tight bun he’s used to.
She veers toward his booth, and Manny’s throat goes dry so fast he almost chokes on the sip of beer he’d just taken. He fumbles the ladle when she leans over the counter to read the handwritten sign advertising his “Ring of Fire Spicy Brisket Chili”, spilling a dollop of red sauce right on the edge of her dress, right above her hip. He swears under his breath, grabs a stack of paper napkins, leans over the counter to dab at the stain before he can think better of it. His knuckles brush the soft fabric of her dress, then the warm skin of her hip just under the hem, and they both freeze for half a second, the noise of the crowd and the country cover band playing off to the side fading for a beat. He can smell her perfume, jasmine mixed with the faint, familiar scent of old paper, and his ears burn.
“Easy there, cowboy,” she says, a slow smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth, and he yanks his hand back like he touched a hot stove, stammering out an apology so fast his words run together. She laughs, the sound bright over the twang of a guitar, and says it’s fine, she’s spilled more coffee on that dress than she can count. He shoves a full bowl of chili across the counter for free, pulls out the wobbly plastic picnic chair next to his booth for her, suddenly too nervous to meet her eye. He’s halfway convinced she’s gonna turn him down, go get chili from the fancy vet’s booth down the row, but she sits, crossing her legs under the table, and takes a bite.
They talk for 45 minutes, the line for his booth piling up while he ignores it, the kid he paid to help out rolling his eyes every time Manny waves off another customer. She mentions the stack of old rodeo memoirs he dropped off at the library last month, says she loved the messy notes he scribbled in the margins about the 1998 San Antonio rodeo, the one where he’d won Clown of the Year. He’s shocked, he’d forgotten he’d written those, and he finds himself telling her stories he hasn’t told anyone in years: the time he hid a stray puppy in his gear bag for three weeks on the circuit, the time he face-planted in a pile of arena dirt in front of 10,000 people, the way his ex left a note on the fridge that just said “I’m tired of waiting for you to grow up” before she drove away.
He laughs, a loud, rumbling sound he hasn’t pulled out in years, and takes her hand, pulling her up. He’s rusty, steps on her toe twice in the first minute, but she just laughs, leaning her head on his shoulder for a second, and he can feel the warmth of her cheek through the thin flannel of his shirt. She whispers against his chest that she’s been stopping by the feed store every Saturday for the past month, hanging around the dog food aisle for 10 minutes at a time, but he always seems to be in the back hauling 50-pound sacks of alfalfa. He freezes mid-step, pulls back just enough to look her in the eye, and sees that she’s not teasing him, that her cheeks are pink, that she’s just as nervous as he is.
The song ends a minute later, but he doesn’t let go of her hand. She laces her fingers through his, says she’s got a bottle of anejo tequila back at her cottage, and a stack of old John Wayne westerns she’s been meaning to watch, if he’s not busy for the rest of the night. He shakes his head, grinning so wide his cheeks hurt, and yells over to the kid manning his booth that he can take the rest of the night off, keep all the tip money, just don’t burn the remaining pot of chili. He grabs his worn leather jacket off the back of the picnic chair, and she tucks her hand into the crook of his arm as they walk toward his beat-up Ford F-150, the crunch of gravel under their boots mixing with the distant sound of the band.
